


When We Used To Cry

by casey270



Category: Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Post-Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7695016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casey270/pseuds/casey270
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a timestamp for Events & Horizons. It takes place sometime in the 6 months between Act1 & Act3.  It also fills the Homesickness square on my H/C bingo card</p>
<p>Thank you, Jodi, for the pre-read</p>
            </blockquote>





	When We Used To Cry

There are times he misses it, especially in the quiet and still of the night. When he doesn’t have anything else to occupy his mind, when his whole existence isn’t about just staying alive for maybe one more day, he remembers the time before. 

He misses his home and family. He misses the safety and security. He even misses having to get up every morning to go to the damn school. Mostly, though, he misses having the luxury of letting himself feel. 

He knows where that emotional part of him was. It’s the place inside that needs. It’s the place that’s so empty it hurts. It’s the place that dreams and hopes and his life used to fill. 

And now there’s nothing.

Now he spends his days and nights doing what he has to do to survive, just like everyone else. There’s no time for idle thoughts. There’s no room for them when he has to be aware of everything around him all the time. Letting his mind wander could be the ticket that buys him a ride that there’s no coming back from. Every fucking thing got real when the world changed, and then it kept going right into the surreal. 

Somewhere along the way, between what was and what is, his life was simplified. There’s no use in planning for a future that might not happen. The only measure of success is living to see another day. Now he only has to sense and react. Basic human instinct, right? 

But when it’s the quiet time like this, when the night is almost ready to give in to dawn, when he can’t sleep and there’s nothing to do but remember, he misses all of it so damn much. He misses the drama and the worry. He misses the joy and the laughter. He misses the wonder over little, inconsequential things, like the war Mrs. Darcy always fought with the grass that insisted on growing between the cracks in her walkway. He even misses the tears.

Hell, he thinks he might miss being able to cry most of all. 

A quick laugh can still be startled out of him, but tears, honest to god tears, would mean feeling something all the way. To feel sorrow so deep that it makes him weep is an extravagance he can’t afford. He hasn’t even cried over everything he’s lost. He had to close that part of his life off in order to go on. He had to give up that part of himself in order to still have any life at all. 

But every once in a while, mostly when he’s not on night watch but his thoughts won’t settle enough for him to find sleep, he understands yearning, because there’s a physical ache inside him that’s so big and wide and dark that it feels like it could swallow him up whole. Hell, it feels like it could swallow this whole changed world, and wouldn’t that be just the shit?

Wouldn’t it be just his damn luck to survive the end of the world, just to die of loneliness? 

But those are grand thoughts for a quiet night, as his grandma used to say. He can see the dawn just peeking through on the horizon, and another day of living is about to start. He’s got to be alert enough to make it through, because someday, maybe, he’ll be able to afford to feel again.


End file.
